If I understand how things went down, all the Pentagon did was fail to dispute the report, which isn't the same thing as confirming the report.
I know, I know. Newsweek has taken a lot of undeserved abuse for this one. It's sad how once again this administration has turned the subject away from what actually happened, and gotten us all focused on how the media reported it.
In further news, CNet has learned that in the modern world of journalism, informing the public with accurate information doesn't pay the bills as well as cranking out controversial rumors that generate massive server loads.
Seriously. If this turns out to be bollocks--and I'd say the odds are greater than 50%--will CNet be punished at all? Will Slashdot stop running their stories? Nah. It's not going to hurt them a bit.
They've learned nothing from the Newsweek fiasco. Get two independent, on-the-record sources for a fact before publishing it as fact.
You remember how Kevin Mitnick was reported to have the ability to start a nook-you-ler war from any payphone in the country?
I don't get Enderle. O'Gara stepped well over the line of professionalism just about every time she wrote an article. Then the one time she goes so far beyond the pale that readers complained to her publishers, they finally decide to sack her. This proves that rabid Linux geeks are now in control of the press?
Trying to turn this into a discussion about my insecurities is dishonest. Trying to claim that the use of the word "gay" in the sense of "lame" has nothing to do with "gay" in the sense of "homosexual" is dishonest.
I'm well aware of the origin of the word "gay". It originally meant "happy" or "joyful". But the new usage you insist on defending didn't derive from the original definition. People hardly ever consciously think of the original definition, except when they're reading something from the '30s. Even then they have to do a mental double-take.
No, the new meaning came out of the one place we should not be looking for guidance on how to use the English language: the halls of junior high schools across the country. You remember the place, right? That pit of Machiavellian intrigues? In junior high, there was no better way to fall straight to the bottom of the heirarchy than to be labelled a "faggot".
Therefore, your claim that there is nothing bigoted about using the word "gay" to mean "lame, pathetic, stupid" stretches my imagination well beyond the breaking point. Now, I do believe that you interpret "gay" according to the context, and that when you hear someone say, "X is gay" you're not thinking that it means "X is lame and stupid, just like homosexuals are lame and stupid." But there are plenty of people who do, and there is no reason to construct our language in such a way as to disparage a group of people who already take undeserved abuse.
I don't jump on every politically correct bandwagon. I could name dozens of examples that I consider laughable. But this one strikes me as cruel and unnecessary. If you care at all about treating homosexuals with respect, I think it should strike you the same way.
I don't think your "mind-numbingly simple concept" is entirely correct. If anything, they've shown that the key to grasping a concept is repeated exposure to it, preferrably from a variety of different angles. But today's education really isn't doing that well, so I share your frustration.
It is considered a derogatory term because "X is gay" associates X with homosexuals. Don't give me any of this "the politically correct mafia is interfering with my free speech" crap.
Now, had "gay" lost the old reference to homosexuality as it gained its new reference to lameness, then you might have a point. I have no problem with using words whose bigoted origins have fallen from public consciousness. But your defense of a word that knowingly and wilfully insults an entire subset of people is unconscionable.
Re:The article sounded reasonable until:
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 1
Point of order: If the processor performed each multiply by printing out the numbers to be multiplied, mailing it to a small hovel in Bangladesh, and waiting for a small child to grow up and learn his times tables before sending back the result, it wouldn't make the computer any less Turing-complete.
As it is, there is the off chance the author has a point about new architectures being architected for maximum graphical throughput, at the expense of other sorts of processing. But it did sound like an awful lot of gobbledygook to me.
The "prime mover" theory isn't based on the laws of physics. It's based on our workaday assumptions about the nature of causality. There are plenty of examples, especially in the quantum realm, of events having no discernable causes.
I sort of understand the mindset of those who say that those who ask for evidence for faith are missing the point. But as a disaffected former Christian, I decided it was ultimately a big cop-out. I can't think of any other areas of life where such thinking applies.
In your analogy, what is the functional equivalent of the person sitting at the desk? What was guarding the information, and telling the students, "You're not allowed to see this"?
For that matter, what is the functional equivalent of the desk itself? In real life, when I put something on my desk, it implies that it's mine, or at least that I'm using it right now and you shouldn't go snooping. What functioned as the demarcation between the information on the server which the students were allowed to access and the information they were forbidden from accessing?
On any decent system, that function is served by authentication. If they'd had to type in a stolen username and password to get to the information, that would be an obvious violation. But if I had been waiting for months to find out if I'd been accepted, and then a friend sent me a URL I could use to find out, I'd probably have clicked through before I'd even considered that there might be an issue.
"Not meant to" is the critical phrase here. Just because the administration really didn't want the kids to have access to the information doesn't mean the kids were aware that the rules were being violated. All they knew for sure was that the information could be accessed by simply sending the right URL. If I can access something by typing a URL, without any sort of authentication, I feel it's perfectly fair to work under the assumption that the site administrator doesn't care if I see it.
Now, if the prior correspondence made it clear that the students shouldn't be trying to confirm their status early, and that drastic consequences could result, then they should accept the consequences. But it seems like that isn't the case.
The problem isn't that wifi users are taking up space without paying for it. The problem is that laptop users are taking up space without contributing to the vibe that the coffee shop is trying to generate.
Coffee shops are meant to be a highly social place, while the life of the computer addict is a solitary one. It sounds like they were ending up with a shop without energy, silent but for the tappity-tap-clicking of laptops. Even if the sea of laptops was purchasing goods at the same rate as the original, chatty crowd, I can see why they'd want the old atmosphere back.
Bah. Within ten years, there will be dirt-cheap wifi everywhere, and people will go back to going to coffee shops for the old reason: to get laid.
I agree with your assessment of the morality of illegal file sharing. But I have a higher regard for its effectiveness. Even if our politicians are bought and paid for by corporations and their lobbyists, they still get a little nervous about passing laws prohibiting an activity that millions of people are doing every day. It's quite often that social norms end up getting codified into law.
But if we want to make real change, it's far better to support independent artists, create GPL'ed software and Creative Commons media, and write those silly congresscritters and explain how draconian copyright law stifles creativity.
Oh, so you think it's somehow moral and proper to let koalas slave away in diamond mines, so your girlfriend can have a pretty-shiny? Think of all the cute, furry little bellies being worn raw as they drag sacks of ore up from the depths of the Earth! And look at those tiny, grasping little hands. They were obviously designed to collect eucalyptus leaves, not wield a heavy pick or shovel!
You, sir--and I use the term sarcastically--have no shame.
I've read this entire exchange, and this is by far the most senseless thing you've said. Correct me if I'm wrong: You seem to be saying that you should compromise whatever moral standards you may have whenever asserting those standards might cause people to think less of your family members.
Say I have children, and decide that television is rotting their poor little brains. I love my children, and believe that having them run around with rotten brains would be doing them a disservice. But by killing the television, I will be subjecting them to the derision of their peers, who all think that anybody who is anybody is following "American Idol".
By your logic, this is an even stronger case for compromise than in Drinkypoo's situation. After all, his wife's friends are probably tactful enough to avoid actually telling her what they think. Further, if they do, she's a grown woman who can take care of herself. The kids are going to have real problems if the morality of their parents causes them to be perceived as unusual.
Worse, your logic precludes me from putting any rules on my kid that would hurt his social life. For example, lots of kids gain popularity by teasing, belittling, and bullying people who aren't in the in-crowd. If I forbid them from engaging in such behavior, am I an "amoral ass"?
No, the RIAA is able to sue for thousands because, under our current draconian copyright law, each instance of infringement is punishable by a $150,000 fine. So when the RIAA calculates the amount they can sue for, it says, "Okay, you downloaded this song to 1000 people. You can settle for us for all the money in your bank account plus the money you can dredge up by hocking your left kidney, or we'll take you to court and ask for... lessee... a thousand times a hundred fifty thousand is... carry the nine... more money than you'll be able to pay back in a hundred lifetimes."
Your claim that the RIAA can only sue for damages is incorrect. I think they're hitting uploaders because they're more interested in reducing the supply than the demand, because the only way to reduce demand is to make suckier music (and I hear they're working that angle as well).
Even better, "Red Hat" might live on, in some bizarre form.
What if, as soon as Microsoft EOL'ed Red Hat as a company, IBM stepped in and said they'd take RH's old customers, that they'll be publishing updates, and that they would soon be releasing their own fork of Red Hat (Blue Shoe?) so that ain't nobody don't have to migrate squat. Red Hat did all the hard work to build the customer base, and suddenly it gets taken away.
Regardless of the details, it's just too easy for Red Hat's customers to find new support. Microsoft couldn't use Red Hat to snag Red Hat's market share and push them towards more Windows-centric solutions.
Which leads me to my final conclusion: This story was the brainchild of generate_page_hits.pl, a breakthrough technology that allows news outlets to increase readership by coming up with plausible and newsworthy-sounding headlines.
"You obviously have no grasp of economics. Free trade works BECAUSE countries are not equal. A country should specialize according to its comparitive advantage."
Counterpoint: Countries are not people, and while some level of specialization is warranted, countries as a whole are also served by having well-diversified economies that can survive a sudden downturn in the products they specialize in.
As stated, your definition of morality and of moral obligation leaves much to be desired. There are moral obligations that govern your life before you have "made a comfortable living for yourself and your family" and will continue to hold long after you've done so.
The first is that you cannot treat another human being as though he or she was nothing more than a means to your own ends. If you do that, then you shouldn't complain when someone exploits you in return.
That rule has lots of implications. In this context, you should see workers in foreign countries as needing food, clothing, shelter, education, etc., just as you are. Therefore, it isn't moral to profit by paying them so little that they cannot afford those things.
That's why we outlawed slavery all those years ago. While this principle is trickier to apply to outsourcing, I think it's a much firmer basis for society than your principles, as you formulate them here.
I don't see the purpose of bounties being to compensate developers for their time. They're not intended to get an otherwise disinterested developer fired up about contributing. It's about getting developers already working on a project interested in building a specific feature, and providing a sense of direction to people who want to dive in, but aren't sure where to start.
No, this isn't "a company taking the matter before a judge." It's a company threatening to take matters before a judge unless an entire forum is nuked.
The fact is, the C&D claim there are unlawful, defamatory, and libelous statements being published, but aren't willing to cite specific instances of unlawful, defamatory, or libelous statements. That indicates--at least to my twisted, paranoid mind--that the lawyers know they don't actually have a case, and are hoping to shut the site down with pure, unadulterated braggadacio.
Also, you admit the possibility that the lawyers might end up being found guilty of barratry, and then claim with absolute certainty that "this is not a frivolous lawsuit". These cannot both be true.
Finally, your analysis of the website owner's legal liabilities is probably misguided. It may be that all she is required to do is to talk to the people who wrote the "defamatory" posts, and have them give their assurance that everything happened as the poster said. Otherwise, reporters wouldn't be protected from lawsuits if it turns out their sources were fraudulent.
Slashdot Mirror
If I understand how things went down, all the Pentagon did was fail to dispute the report, which isn't the same thing as confirming the report.
I know, I know. Newsweek has taken a lot of undeserved abuse for this one. It's sad how once again this administration has turned the subject away from what actually happened, and gotten us all focused on how the media reported it.
But they still should have gotten another source.
:: me scratches head ::
::
Sure... I guess.
:: me thinks at it again
But, why would you want to DO that?
In further news, CNet has learned that in the modern world of journalism, informing the public with accurate information doesn't pay the bills as well as cranking out controversial rumors that generate massive server loads.
Seriously. If this turns out to be bollocks--and I'd say the odds are greater than 50%--will CNet be punished at all? Will Slashdot stop running their stories? Nah. It's not going to hurt them a bit.
They've learned nothing from the Newsweek fiasco. Get two independent, on-the-record sources for a fact before publishing it as fact.
I think you could have left out the first three.
And it's powered by atmospherium!
Wow. This is Mitnick-like power!
You remember how Kevin Mitnick was reported to have the ability to start a nook-you-ler war from any payphone in the country?
I don't get Enderle. O'Gara stepped well over the line of professionalism just about every time she wrote an article. Then the one time she goes so far beyond the pale that readers complained to her publishers, they finally decide to sack her. This proves that rabid Linux geeks are now in control of the press?
Trying to turn this into a discussion about my insecurities is dishonest. Trying to claim that the use of the word "gay" in the sense of "lame" has nothing to do with "gay" in the sense of "homosexual" is dishonest.
I'm well aware of the origin of the word "gay". It originally meant "happy" or "joyful". But the new usage you insist on defending didn't derive from the original definition. People hardly ever consciously think of the original definition, except when they're reading something from the '30s. Even then they have to do a mental double-take.
No, the new meaning came out of the one place we should not be looking for guidance on how to use the English language: the halls of junior high schools across the country. You remember the place, right? That pit of Machiavellian intrigues? In junior high, there was no better way to fall straight to the bottom of the heirarchy than to be labelled a "faggot".
Therefore, your claim that there is nothing bigoted about using the word "gay" to mean "lame, pathetic, stupid" stretches my imagination well beyond the breaking point. Now, I do believe that you interpret "gay" according to the context, and that when you hear someone say, "X is gay" you're not thinking that it means "X is lame and stupid, just like homosexuals are lame and stupid." But there are plenty of people who do, and there is no reason to construct our language in such a way as to disparage a group of people who already take undeserved abuse.
I don't jump on every politically correct bandwagon. I could name dozens of examples that I consider laughable. But this one strikes me as cruel and unnecessary. If you care at all about treating homosexuals with respect, I think it should strike you the same way.
Is this what you're describing?
I don't think your "mind-numbingly simple concept" is entirely correct. If anything, they've shown that the key to grasping a concept is repeated exposure to it, preferrably from a variety of different angles. But today's education really isn't doing that well, so I share your frustration.
It is considered a derogatory term because "X is gay" associates X with homosexuals. Don't give me any of this "the politically correct mafia is interfering with my free speech" crap.
Now, had "gay" lost the old reference to homosexuality as it gained its new reference to lameness, then you might have a point. I have no problem with using words whose bigoted origins have fallen from public consciousness. But your defense of a word that knowingly and wilfully insults an entire subset of people is unconscionable.
Point of order: If the processor performed each multiply by printing out the numbers to be multiplied, mailing it to a small hovel in Bangladesh, and waiting for a small child to grow up and learn his times tables before sending back the result, it wouldn't make the computer any less Turing-complete.
As it is, there is the off chance the author has a point about new architectures being architected for maximum graphical throughput, at the expense of other sorts of processing. But it did sound like an awful lot of gobbledygook to me.
The "prime mover" theory isn't based on the laws of physics. It's based on our workaday assumptions about the nature of causality. There are plenty of examples, especially in the quantum realm, of events having no discernable causes.
I sort of understand the mindset of those who say that those who ask for evidence for faith are missing the point. But as a disaffected former Christian, I decided it was ultimately a big cop-out. I can't think of any other areas of life where such thinking applies.
In your analogy, what is the functional equivalent of the person sitting at the desk? What was guarding the information, and telling the students, "You're not allowed to see this"?
For that matter, what is the functional equivalent of the desk itself? In real life, when I put something on my desk, it implies that it's mine, or at least that I'm using it right now and you shouldn't go snooping. What functioned as the demarcation between the information on the server which the students were allowed to access and the information they were forbidden from accessing?
On any decent system, that function is served by authentication. If they'd had to type in a stolen username and password to get to the information, that would be an obvious violation. But if I had been waiting for months to find out if I'd been accepted, and then a friend sent me a URL I could use to find out, I'd probably have clicked through before I'd even considered that there might be an issue.
"Not meant to" is the critical phrase here. Just because the administration really didn't want the kids to have access to the information doesn't mean the kids were aware that the rules were being violated. All they knew for sure was that the information could be accessed by simply sending the right URL. If I can access something by typing a URL, without any sort of authentication, I feel it's perfectly fair to work under the assumption that the site administrator doesn't care if I see it.
Now, if the prior correspondence made it clear that the students shouldn't be trying to confirm their status early, and that drastic consequences could result, then they should accept the consequences. But it seems like that isn't the case.
The problem isn't that wifi users are taking up space without paying for it. The problem is that laptop users are taking up space without contributing to the vibe that the coffee shop is trying to generate.
Coffee shops are meant to be a highly social place, while the life of the computer addict is a solitary one. It sounds like they were ending up with a shop without energy, silent but for the tappity-tap-clicking of laptops. Even if the sea of laptops was purchasing goods at the same rate as the original, chatty crowd, I can see why they'd want the old atmosphere back.
Bah. Within ten years, there will be dirt-cheap wifi everywhere, and people will go back to going to coffee shops for the old reason: to get laid.
He's Daniel Lyons, and you shouldn't. He's just a journalist from the Maureen O'Gara school of inciteful counterrevolutionary propaganda.
I agree with your assessment of the morality of illegal file sharing. But I have a higher regard for its effectiveness. Even if our politicians are bought and paid for by corporations and their lobbyists, they still get a little nervous about passing laws prohibiting an activity that millions of people are doing every day. It's quite often that social norms end up getting codified into law.
But if we want to make real change, it's far better to support independent artists, create GPL'ed software and Creative Commons media, and write those silly congresscritters and explain how draconian copyright law stifles creativity.
Oh, so you think it's somehow moral and proper to let koalas slave away in diamond mines, so your girlfriend can have a pretty-shiny? Think of all the cute, furry little bellies being worn raw as they drag sacks of ore up from the depths of the Earth! And look at those tiny, grasping little hands. They were obviously designed to collect eucalyptus leaves, not wield a heavy pick or shovel!
You, sir--and I use the term sarcastically--have no shame.
I've read this entire exchange, and this is by far the most senseless thing you've said. Correct me if I'm wrong: You seem to be saying that you should compromise whatever moral standards you may have whenever asserting those standards might cause people to think less of your family members.
Say I have children, and decide that television is rotting their poor little brains. I love my children, and believe that having them run around with rotten brains would be doing them a disservice. But by killing the television, I will be subjecting them to the derision of their peers, who all think that anybody who is anybody is following "American Idol".
By your logic, this is an even stronger case for compromise than in Drinkypoo's situation. After all, his wife's friends are probably tactful enough to avoid actually telling her what they think. Further, if they do, she's a grown woman who can take care of herself. The kids are going to have real problems if the morality of their parents causes them to be perceived as unusual.
Worse, your logic precludes me from putting any rules on my kid that would hurt his social life. For example, lots of kids gain popularity by teasing, belittling, and bullying people who aren't in the in-crowd. If I forbid them from engaging in such behavior, am I an "amoral ass"?
No, the RIAA is able to sue for thousands because, under our current draconian copyright law, each instance of infringement is punishable by a $150,000 fine. So when the RIAA calculates the amount they can sue for, it says, "Okay, you downloaded this song to 1000 people. You can settle for us for all the money in your bank account plus the money you can dredge up by hocking your left kidney, or we'll take you to court and ask for... lessee... a thousand times a hundred fifty thousand is... carry the nine... more money than you'll be able to pay back in a hundred lifetimes."
Your claim that the RIAA can only sue for damages is incorrect. I think they're hitting uploaders because they're more interested in reducing the supply than the demand, because the only way to reduce demand is to make suckier music (and I hear they're working that angle as well).
Even better, "Red Hat" might live on, in some bizarre form.
What if, as soon as Microsoft EOL'ed Red Hat as a company, IBM stepped in and said they'd take RH's old customers, that they'll be publishing updates, and that they would soon be releasing their own fork of Red Hat (Blue Shoe?) so that ain't nobody don't have to migrate squat. Red Hat did all the hard work to build the customer base, and suddenly it gets taken away.
Regardless of the details, it's just too easy for Red Hat's customers to find new support. Microsoft couldn't use Red Hat to snag Red Hat's market share and push them towards more Windows-centric solutions.
Which leads me to my final conclusion: This story was the brainchild of generate_page_hits.pl, a breakthrough technology that allows news outlets to increase readership by coming up with plausible and newsworthy-sounding headlines.
As stated, your definition of morality and of moral obligation leaves much to be desired. There are moral obligations that govern your life before you have "made a comfortable living for yourself and your family" and will continue to hold long after you've done so.
The first is that you cannot treat another human being as though he or she was nothing more than a means to your own ends. If you do that, then you shouldn't complain when someone exploits you in return.
That rule has lots of implications. In this context, you should see workers in foreign countries as needing food, clothing, shelter, education, etc., just as you are. Therefore, it isn't moral to profit by paying them so little that they cannot afford those things.
That's why we outlawed slavery all those years ago. While this principle is trickier to apply to outsourcing, I think it's a much firmer basis for society than your principles, as you formulate them here.
I don't see the purpose of bounties being to compensate developers for their time. They're not intended to get an otherwise disinterested developer fired up about contributing. It's about getting developers already working on a project interested in building a specific feature, and providing a sense of direction to people who want to dive in, but aren't sure where to start.
No, this isn't "a company taking the matter before a judge." It's a company threatening to take matters before a judge unless an entire forum is nuked.
The fact is, the C&D claim there are unlawful, defamatory, and libelous statements being published, but aren't willing to cite specific instances of unlawful, defamatory, or libelous statements. That indicates--at least to my twisted, paranoid mind--that the lawyers know they don't actually have a case, and are hoping to shut the site down with pure, unadulterated braggadacio.
Also, you admit the possibility that the lawyers might end up being found guilty of barratry, and then claim with absolute certainty that "this is not a frivolous lawsuit". These cannot both be true.
Finally, your analysis of the website owner's legal liabilities is probably misguided. It may be that all she is required to do is to talk to the people who wrote the "defamatory" posts, and have them give their assurance that everything happened as the poster said. Otherwise, reporters wouldn't be protected from lawsuits if it turns out their sources were fraudulent.